This is a little section of my website dedicated to some tips from me about your couples photos on your wedding day.
I like people to be super relaxed in front of the camera so that’s my main aim on your wedding, there will be nothing too staged or posed.
Hopefully you find this useful, but on the day you can just relax and I’ll guide you through the whole process.
As a documentary photographer, I don’t do a huge amount of couples photos, but it does vary from couple to couple.
For some couples I do a very short sharp shoot on the day, comprising of literally one or two shots, others we spend 10-15 minutes getting a series of shots, it’s totally up to you and I’m happy for you to give me input on the day as to how much you’d like to do, or if there is anything you have in mind.
My aim for this part of the day is to be nice and quick, get some awesome portraits of the two of you, and not interfere with the flow of your day. I’ve got a timeline planning guide that goes over this, the main plan is to do your couples photoshoot as everyone finds their seats for the wedding breakfast, this way you don’t lose any time with your guests (as they will be off finding their seats) and it gives you a nice bit of chillout time before the second half of the day.
So, everyone gets called for the wedding meal and we head somewhere at the venue that’s away from everyone and start a very relaxed portrait session.
Sometimes the weather can play a part in timings as well as the light, but this is a pretty standard plan here and it works really well, but we can change it around if we need to.
I will tell you exactly what to do while we do this part of the day, all I need from you is to just enjoy the moment.
I start with finding a nice spot and getting the two of you to stand together in an open ‘V’ shape towards me, but while talking to each other while I frame up a shot, this gives me a chance to get the shot I’m looking for and means you can just concentrate on each other instead of me.
I’ll then do a couple of walking hand-in-hand shots towards the camera, but lots of looking and smiling at each other and not much looking right at me.
This is then repeated for a few locations and backgrounds till we’re both happy that we have enough shots. Really easygoing and low pressure, I won’t be getting you to do anything cringe or forced at all!
This is a common one and most people tend to freeze up a little in front of a camera, which is why with the way I work I’m getting you to talk and move and then capture those in-between shots where you relax.
I’ll also have been photographing you all day, so after the initial strangeness of having someone point a camera at you in the morning, by the afternoon you’ll be much more used to it.
I also go quite quickly and by avoiding anything forced you can focus on just being with each other and enjoying the moment and I’ll be there grabbing a few photos of it.
100% YES. If you have ideas then I want to hear them, if you have a shot that you’d like to do then we can absolutely do it, best bet is to send me some notes and I can add it to your plan of the day.
Alternatively, you don’t have to think about this part of the day at all, if you’ve got no idea of what you’d like here then leave it all to me and I’ll be getting some fantastic shots of you both.
I hope you found that useful, the key takeaway is to really not worry about this part of the day and trust that everything will be flowing and that we will come away with some fantastic photos.
Do give me a shout if you have any questions at all,
Cheers,
Col-
